PCSO chair Maliksi sued for graft, malversation for ‘using’ idle pork funds

Chair Erineo “Ayong” S. Maliksi Screengrab from www.lpp.gov.ph

PHILIPPINE Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) chairman Erineo “Ayong” Maliksi was sued for graft and malversation before the Ombudsman for allegedly diverting his idle pork barrel funds to pay the hospital bills of his driver.

In the complaint affidavit filed on Monday, Jennifer Castro of the Filipino Alliance for Transparency and Empowerment (FATE) accused Maliksi of “using” his unspent P2.151-million Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) allocated to him when he was still a Cavite congressman.

The complainant said Maliksi wrote a letter to the Philippine Heart Center asking that his unused PDAF before he was appointed PCSO chair be used instead by incumbent Cavite Rep. Alex Advincula, who was also sued for graft and malversation in the complaint.

Maliksi supposedly wrote Philippine Heart Center Executive Director Manuel Chua Chiaco in December 2015 to allow Advincula to use the amount to pay the hospital bills of his driver Celestino Aman.

Maliksi supposedly used Advincula to sign the conforme portion of the letter to pay the hospital bills after Aman’s death.

“In the letter, the honorable PCSO chairman claimed that when he was still representative of the third district of Cavite, he had allocated amounts with the Philippine Heart Center which were eventually turned over for the use of the incumbent Representative Advincula,” the complaint read.

“The anomaly here is that respondent Maliksi insisted to use such funds even though he is no longer a member of Congress, not even the current representative of the 3rd district of Cavite,” the complaint added.

Maliksi also allegedly spent his unused PDAF two years after the Supreme Court declared PDAF partly illegal amid a public outcry over the scheme of Janet Lim-Napoles pork barrel scam.

This means Maliksi used the fund even though it should have been remitted to the treasury, the complainant said.

The complainant accused Maliksi of using his position as PCSO chair to unduly benefit his deceased driver.

“The Honorable Ombudsman should not take these acts of respondents lightly as there is indeed an evident violation of the law and jurisprudence…,”  the complaint added.

Maliksi is accused of graft for requesting a gift for another person in connection with a transaction with the government.

Meanwhile, he is also sued for malversation for misappropriating public funds over which he is accountable for.

During the House of Representatives games and amusements committee hearing on Feb. 1, Maliksi denied using his position at the PCSO to give undue preference to his driver, saying he grants charity to indigent patients.

Maliksi also said Aman was a staff of his office and not his driver.

The complainant Castro had also sued Maliksi for a separate graft offense of using his position to grant a privilege to an unqualified person, and violation of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees which requires officials not to discriminate against the poor and underprivileged.

Maliksi earlier faced a graft case before the Sandiganbayan stemming from an allegedly irregular procurement of medicines worth P2.5 million in 2002. But the court threw out the case for the Ombudsman’s inordinate delay in filing the case.